Abstract

Media organizations engaging in journalistic production face ethical challenges that concern business ethics as much as journalism ethics. This article studies expectations of responsibility for media organizations that engage in journalistic production and assesses them from the viewpoint of sector-specific corporate responsibility. The data are obtained from interviews with Finnish nongovernmental organization experts who work closely with media issues. Of the three positive and three negative expectation themes identified, audience enabling was associated with most confidence. Audience enabling deals with the impacts of media products and social connectivity that links media organizations into larger societal processes and issues. It is concluded that without the synchronization of journalism ethics and business ethics, it can be difficult to address complex corporate responsibility issues.